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What Is It?
VBScript, or Visual Basic Scripting Edition, is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft. VBScript version 1.0 began as part of the Microsoft Windows Script Technologies in 1996, and version 2.0 (later renamed 5.0) was released within two years after the initial script.
Who Is it For?
Targeted at Web developers initially, system administrators noticed it and began using it between version 1.0 and 2.0. The language engine currently is being maintained by Microsoft’s Sustaining Engineering Team, which is responsible for bug fixes and security enhancements. However, as of 2007, no new functionality will be added to the VBScript language, as it has been superceded by Windows Powershell. Microsoft will continue to ship VBScript with future releases of Microsoft Windows, as well as other components of the ActiveX Scripting Family such as Jscript. Additionally, Microsoft will continue to support users of the language. Users who plan to use VBScript will find a familiarity with the language if the user already knows Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Features
When VBScript is employed in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), it functions similarly to JavaScript as a language used to write function embedded or included in HTML pages and that interact with the Document Object Module (DOM) of a page to perform tasks beyond HTML. VBScript talks to host applications using Windows Script. Windows Script enables a host to compile scripts, obtain and call entry points, and manage the namespace available to the developer. With Windows Script, language vendors can create standard language run times for scripting. Besides client-side web development, VBScript is used for server-side processing of web pages, most notably with Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP).
The functionality of VBScript 5.0 was enhanced with features such as regular expressions, classes, the “With” statement, Eval/Execute/ExecuteGlobal functions to evaluate and execute script commands built during the execution of another script, a function-pointer system via GetRef(), and Distributed COM (DCOM) support. Version 5.5 added “Submatches” to the regular expression class to allow VBScript authors to capture text within the expression’s groups. Before this addition, this capability was available only through the Jscript member of the Microsoft ActiveX Scripting family.
Compatibility
VBScript works with Microsoft IE. Other web browsers such as Firefox and Opera do not contain built-in support for this language. This means that where client-side scripts are required on a Web site, developers almost always use JavaScript for cross-browser compatibility rather than VBScript.
